Roland Garel

(1930 - 4 February 2015, France)

Roland Garel began his career in 1947 at Cino del Duca's Éditions Mondiales, where he began retouching foreign material and making cover illustrations under the name Rolgar. He was the assistant of René Giffey and Rémy Bourlès in the 1950s, and learned the profession by participating in their productions for magazines like Tarzan, L'Intrépide, Pistolin, Nous Deux, Intimité, Hurrah-Aventures, Vie en fleurs and Modes et Travaux.

By 1957, he published his first comic story, 'Papoulet et Riton', in the French magazine Ima. He then began a collaboration with the pocket publications of Aventures & Voyages (Marco Polo, Robin des Bois), where he created series like 'Galax' (2000 pages) and 'Les 4 As' (2080 pages) from scripts by Roger Lécureux between 1961 and 1968. In addition, he was present in Record with 'Les Aventures de Jack de Minuit', and in several other magazines for children, like Lisette, J2 Magazine, Formule 1 and Fripounet.

Les 4 As

Through the Intermonde agency, he worked as an artist of newspaper strips, including 'Les Trappeurs de l'Arkansas' (Paris-Normandie), 'S.O.S. Pour l'Enfer Vert' (Le Dauphiné Libéré, La Résistence de l'Ouest, La Montagne, 1958-60) and one of his best known creations, 'Chère Pauline'. This strip debuted in Le Parisien in 1968, and has been reprinted in numerous other papers until 1971.

Garel has also published albums with publishers like Jeunesse et Vacances, Chancerel ('Bricolage', 'La Cuisine', 1967), Dargaud ('L'Auberge Rouge', coll. Drames et Énigmes, 1969), Fleurus ('Vincent de Paul', 1986) and Editions du Cygne ('L'Histoire du Groupe Danone', 2004). For the editorial agency of Chancerel, he additionally made 'Les Pionniers de l'Impossible' between 1974 and 1982. He contributed to the 'Encyclopédie en Bandes Dessinées' at Auzou publishers from 1980 and 1982.

Les Grandes Heures des Églises

Throughout the 1980s, Garel did a large amount of work for such magazines as Télé-Loisirs, Télé-Poche, Elle, Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Parisien and several other Swiss, Belgian and Spanish magazines. In the second half of the 1980s, he participated in the series 'Figures du Protestantisme d'Hier et d'Aujourd'hui' at Éditions du Signe, and 'Les Grandes Heures des Églises' at Fleurus. He took over 'Arthur et Stéphanie' in Triolo in 1990, and was assisted by his son Bruno. President of the Syndicate of Press Artists, he retired from comics to head the APAR agency, that distributes game pages to the press.